 So in this episode coming up, we got really deep in a question. A little mushy today. The girl's gone wad podcast girls, of course. What are we trying to do to us? They like to fuck with us. They asked us a really good question about our insecurities and how we handle them. And one of the things that we really, the common theme in that conversation was that it's really important to have people around you that you can talk with about these things and be open with, no, you're not being judged. You know that the advice you're going to get is going to be coming from a good place. And it really helps you become aware of all these different things. And it really pops into my mind. Talking about that was just the forum that we have, the private forum that we created. I don't know if we even really intended it for to go that direction at one point, but I think that so many people connected with each other when we first started it that they felt so comfortable with sharing these things that they wouldn't share with even their other friends or family. People saying they're engaged in all these megalithic life moments they're all sharing here because it's just a free format for people to just help each other out. Become a very strong community that's judgment free, right? I mean, I feel like everybody is there. Well, there's that, there's the support factor, there's the information factor, people sharing such great information, debating great ideas. And I love seeing that because people are respectful and they just wanna get to the truth. And so it's just kind of the vibe, right? It's the culture of the forum where people are really just trying to get to the truth of whatever question. And at the end of it, people come out learning something. I learn every day going on our forum. Absolutely. It's an awesome community. We're not going to keep it open for new people forever. It's just the reality. We don't wanna, I'm not trying to get it to 10,000 people. At some point we'll create something else where we could grow that. But this core forum right here, we keep raising the price because more and more people are signing up and the price will be going up again next month. We are gonna be raising the price again so we're gonna close out on the current rate for it. This month, we're also giving away free forum access if you enroll in the RGB bundle, which is Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic, nine months of exercise programming. Or if you enroll in the step above that, which is the Maps Superbundle, which also includes Maps Anywhere, which is our equipment free workout program and Maps Prime, which we also talk about in this episode, which has a compass which helps you self assess and then teaches you how to prime your workout. So if you enroll in either one of those bundles, you get forum access for free. And by the way, once you're in, you're in for life. You pay once and that's it. Regardless of how high the price goes up or however it changes, you're in for life. You can find all of this at mindpumpmedia.com. T-shirt time. Let's fly them shirts out. Yeah, we had 20 reviews this week. Okay, back on top. Yep, back on top. Thank goodness. I like getting depressed. I thought you liked bottom. Ooh, sorry. Hey. We're giving away six shirts. Only on Thursdays. All right, so I'm gonna read these off. We got Dirty Doof. That's a dirty doof. Ah, yeah. Winner. Handsome Han. Winner. Wow, I like that guy. Flashathon. Winner. We got some good ones. Flashathon. I wanna sign up for that. How about this one? Let's have that party in here. Organ vibrator. Whoa. Whoa. Organ. And play me a tune there. Did you say organ or organ? Organ. Organ vibrator. Organ vibrator. And finally got bags. All of you are winners. Send your name. The one I just read to itunes at mindpumpmedia.com. Send your shirt size, your shipping address, and we'll get that right out to ya. Thank you. If you wanna pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mindpump. Mindpump. With your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Blame it on the Doug. Yeah, yeah. Hey, what happened? We, on the way to Reno, we must have, we did a whole like a series of 80s, 80s cartoons. It's all night. You had a ton of them in your, your Rolodex there. I was. What happened, bro? Did you lose them? What do you mean? No, there were TV shows. There were old TV shows and commercials. Yeah. We had Justin had a ton of jingles. Did you lose them already? Well, you know which one tripped me out the most? I'm banking them all, dude. Was bosom buddies. You guys remember bosom buddies? Yeah, yeah. Bosom buddies for most of our listeners, because I'm sure none of them know what I'm talking about. It was an old, very popular TV show where there were these two guys, the premise is fucking stupid. But anyways. In a cross-dress. Well, hold on. An apartment is so hard to find in New York apparently during this period of time that they finally found this perfect apartment with a perfect price, but. But it was in a ladies only. It's in a women's only building. So in order to get the apartment, what they do is they pretend to be women and so they dress up as women when they're there and Tom Hanks was in it. Tom Hanks was one of the guys. Oh, that's right. He was, yeah, yeah. Oh, I didn't remember Tom Hanks being in it. Oh, yeah. It's the funniest show ever, but it would never work today because of that. Oh, no. People would freak out, dude. Well, now you just be like, oh, they're just looking for an excuse to dress up like girls. You know what I mean? It would never work. It was hilarious. They'd answer the door when someone would ring the doorbell. Who is it? Who is it? Yeah, that would never work. No. What'd you guys do this weekend? What did we do this weekend? Weren't we together this weekend? Were we together? Wasn't this Reno? Where were we just at? We just were together. We were at Reno. No, we weren't. We came back. Yeah, what day would we get back? We came back on Friday. Oh, so we had Saturday and Sunday. Jesus, dude. What did we do in Reno? It would make us forget everything. Seriously, I was trying to plan something with my buddies the other day and I'm like, honestly, and they get so mad at me. I don't know our schedule. I have no idea where we're supposed to be. I feel like we're here one day, that way another day. Someone's coming in another day. This has been, I mean, talk about quite the experience right now. This is just, I've never had anything that I've done that requires this much flying in and out all over the place. I'm enjoying it. Don't get me wrong. It's awesome. Yeah, I really. But it also can be challenging, of course. Yeah, I mean, and I can't imagine you guys with kids and stuff like that and family at home, how challenging. It's like jockey. It's a jockey race. I'm, I mean, luckily I'm blessed with a good family and then my girlfriend watched my kids for the first time last week. Oh, how'd that go? Yeah, it was like. She's a wizard with children. I mean that like literally, she's a wizard. I've seen her work with, I've seen her with my kids. I've seen her with kids in her family. I've seen her with like when we're out and there's like a random kid. Like they just connect with her and she gets my kids to do shit that would normally require, she gets them to do it easily. Stuff that requires me to become gangster. Like when I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna give you three seconds before I, you know. Secretly beats them. No, she's so, you know what it is? God, I had a crazy realization this weekend. So she's just super effective. And I think when you're raised a particular way and then you have your own kids, you don't realize that there may be some things that you're doing that are ineffective or wrong because it's so hardwired. It's so hardwired, you just don't, you don't realize like I'll give you an example, like in my culture, so my family's Sicilian. And in my culture, A lot of hands are thrown around. Yeah, no. And in my culture, like you feed the fuck and you like you force feed your children. You just do it. And we all joke about it. Like grandma, like, you know, making you eat all this food and if you don't eat, she feels offended and so you feel like you have to eat more. Too skinny. But it's like a, it's like a, it's in our culture to the point where dinner time is stressful for everybody because if the kid doesn't eat, then you bribe them, you threaten them, you know, well, you can't eat this and let's eat that. You make them stay there until they finish the entire plate. Yeah, you know, it's that whole thing but it's so ingrained in my culture that I've now connected it with, like that means I'm a loving parent. Like if I give my kids something to eat and they're like, I don't want to eat this, if I don't make them eat it, I don't, I must not love them. And it's just really deep ingrained thing inside of me. Oh yeah, I can totally identify with it. And it sucks because I didn't really fully realize it until recently, because I was talking to my girlfriend about this and she's like, you know, I'm watching your daughter, you know, and you know, she's over my parents' house and my mom is like, you know, obviously she's old school and she was like getting my daughter to eat all of her chicken. And she's like, and I can see how stressed out your daughter is about it. And she goes, if she does eat it because you're pressuring her to eat it, you're, what are you accomplishing? What you're doing is you may be setting up a bad relationship to food. And I was like, holy fuck. Like, I am totally doing that. I'm totally creating this bad relationship by doing that around me. I had a moment like that because my son's birthday's today and... Oh, happy birthday, little boy. Yeah, happy birthday, my buddy. You're Italian, you're Italian. You're Italian, son. You're Irish to Italian all of a sudden, we just, I don't know, it's a party, yeah. You fucked up your accent. You're porky, you're porky. Hi, today. Your porky's gonna be so fucking confused. I was like, wait a minute, I was my Italian. Yeah, he just doesn't know. He's all the above probably. But yeah, no, so we were at my in-laws' house and so we're going through the same process of like, okay, there's all this food out there and, you know, my youngest, he eats so much food for breakfast. Like, we realized, like Courtney and I both realized that this is like our timeframe with him. Like, he does best at like, eating like as much of the calories the calorie bulk of the day is breakfast. And so, eating dinner, like dinner is like this weird social thing, right? It's this pressured situation where you have all the families are together and we're all kind of celebrating the birthday and so you expect the kids to behave a certain way, they have to sit still, they have to like never talk, you know, they have to like eat all of their food that they prepare for them because, you know, and I get it because it's, there's a lot of love that goes into preparing these foods and wanting these kids to enjoy it and all that stuff, but I know my son's not gonna eat any of it. He's not gonna eat any of it. Oh really? Is he super picky or what? Yeah, absolutely, but he just doesn't eat dinner at all. Oh, yeah. So here's something that happened this weekend that was so effective that my girlfriend did. So she's been reading this book on communicating with children in how kids learn best and one of the things that she did is she gives them an option. So she'll, like she said to my kids, like, okay, I made lamb, I made broccoli and I made rice and my daughter would be like, well, I don't like lamb. And she'd like, okay, you can choose to eat something else but you have to prepare it yourself. Here's what we have in the house. And of course we don't have shitty, bad foods in the house. It's like, okay, your options are, you know, fruity pebbles and you know, I said something like, I have sardines, I have tuna fish and I have chicken and I have chicken and you can prepare it yourself and eat it. And so my daughter, my daughter is very strong willed, very, very strong willed, which I love. I love that about her. It makes it difficult, but I love that about her. So my daughter was like, well, I'm not eating lamb. So I'm like, well, you can prepare yourself some tuna fish and eat that. So, you know, it's up to you and she goes, fine, I'll eat tuna fish. Now I know damn well tuna out of a can is fucking disgusting, but she chose it. So I said, no problem. So I went along with it and I said, okay. So she got the tuna, helped her open the can. She did the whole prep, put it on the plate, sat down in front of it and she fucking ate it. And I know she didn't like it, but the reason she ate it is because it was her choice. She said she would. Absolutely, it's smart. And not only that, but I'm not creating this anxiety like situation where the stressful situation where they developed this potentially bad relationship with food or eating time or whatever. And the other thing too is like, if they don't eat lunch, like I'll pack them a lunch. And if they come home, they used to get in trouble. I'd open their lunch and be like, you didn't eat your lunch, you know? And now it's like, what's the big deal? Like if they don't want to eat, fuck it. And that's, you know, fine. You're not gonna die if you miss one meal. Yeah, what? Isn't it so counterintuitive? Like it's so counter to our message of like how we now as adults, we're trying to like portion out and like cut down on the amount of food. But you know, meanwhile you're trying to stuff your kids with like as much as possible, like in an obese kind of mentality. You can't, it's crazy. You cannot tell me that that is not gonna promote. That's my realization. Like I totally realized like, holy shit, I am promoting the exact opposite. Well, you know, that comes from, it's that famine mentality. It's the old school, it's like my parents' generation where it was passed down to them that like, no way, you have to lick your plate clean before you leave this table. Well, I mean, not that many generations ago, like my grandfather's generation in Sicily were very poor, like very, very poor. And you didn't always have great food. So sometimes you had food in front of you that looked, it was plain or gross or whatever. And it was like, eat the hell out of it because who knows. Yeah, you might not get another meal another day. And so they developed this like, That's a real thing. They developed this like manipulative like culture of how you manipulate your children to eat. Like you time them, you create a race. Like who can eat the fastest or you bribe them or you punish them all around food. And it hit me like a ton of bricks this weekend when I saw that and I was like, wow, that was effective. And I'm like, holy fuck, what I'm doing not only is not working, it's doing the opposite of what I want to do. And there's nothing like as a parent, let me tell you something. There is nothing like realizing you're fucking your children up. I swear to God, like you hit a moment you're like, what the fuck am I doing? Oh no. Yeah, oh shit. I've been doing this. What have I done? So yeah, that was that. This weekend I actually had an opportunity to spend some time with a child therapist, right? So she, yeah, yeah. So I actually, it's funny we're talking about this right now because I love when I meet somebody like this and she's, I get to ask her, what's your favorite part of the job and some paradigm shattering moments for her. And when I meet someone like this, I'll absorb as much information as I can and then I'll take notes in my phone and they'll go back and research some of the stuff that she gave me and start reading myself. And so she told me one of the most paradigm shattering moments for her in her career was reading Dr. Mary Ainsworth. And it talks about the attachment theory and it goes right along the lines of what you guys are talking about right now about the, they break it up in four different quadrants on the type of attachment that the child has created because through the relationships and how that is deep rooted in all of us. And it really shapes who we come as dolls. And she told me, you know, read into her stuff, you'll enjoy some of that. So I've already started researching, looking into it. So I'll let you guys know when I pick it up. But I love this stuff. I think that one of my favorite things to do when I meet people is to kind of learn about their childhood because I think you, it tells so much about a person. Learning about someone's childhood and their library of books to me, like I can find so much out about a person like that. And it's crazy that so many parents, especially young parents, you know, people that have kids in their early 20s, it's such a scary thing I feel like because, you know, you're having kids at such an impressionable age, man. That five to seven year olds, like this, they're really shaping, you're shaping their mind at that time. And she- No pressure. Well, you know, it's funny. Well, she actually, what she said though was, and she made, she was careful when she's sharing this with me. She's like, you know, and, you know, not to say that like, you know, scary way because it's impossible to be a perfect parent. She's like, it's possible to make every right decision. It's not about that. But just being aware of that and being mindful that, you know, you're shaping a mind that you're really, you're forming an adult right now, you know, from five to nine years old, the things, the way you communicate, the relationships they build, the relationships they have with food like you guys are talking about, will form them for the rest of their lives. And I just don't think a lot of parents, especially young parents that have kids, really think about those things. You know, it's, they're so caught up and they're still figuring their fucking selves out. You know, you're 25 years old or something. You're still having fucking fully grown up yourself and you're still trying to figure out your way. Meanwhile, you've got a kid who's five years old that you're shaping and forming them. Like sometimes you've got to stop and think about it before you just yell at them for doing something or scold them for this or take something away from them or not spend the time to explain to them why you're doing these things. Like, all that shit matters. This is why when parents become grandparents, they're like so excited to become a grandparent because it's literally- Like they learned all this shit. Well, because I think what happens- There's no pressure. Well, from talking to like my parents and my kids, other grandparents and other people who are grandparents, I'm very curious with this process and because there's this common theme, right? Like when you're a parent, you're stressed out, you're running all over the place and all of a sudden you become a grandparent and you're like, oh my God, it's even better than when I was first a parent. And part of the reason is, I think when you first become a parent- Pay more attention. Yeah, you forget to be present. And then it's gone. And they're like, oh my God, I totally missed out on all that time. Now I get to kind of revisit it again. I read a quote, I can't remember exactly what it said, but it was something like kids are really, kids do a really bad job of listening to what you're gonna tell them, but they do a really job of copying you or observing. So in other words, I think 90% of the battle is just be what you want them to be. You know what I mean? That's like 90% of it. And along the lines, another thing that she shared with me and I asked her about and she talked about what she called motivational interviewing. And she said that, something that is showing a lot of progress in their field is actually, instead of telling somebody like, no, don't do this or oh, trying to force kids in a direction is actually finding the things that motivate them and helping them break down why they enjoy that so much and encouraging that direction based off those things versus you need to do this or I want you to go this direction because you're supposed to or like that. Well, let's discuss the things that actually really motivate you and then let's break down why you like doing that stuff so much. What is it that you enjoy son or daughter that drives you to do these things and helping them connect those dots even at a young age? I think that's the part that where a lot of people just miss out on it. That's why I love when you guys share your guys' interaction with your children because I think that you guys are very aware parents. And I don't think there's a lot of that, man. I mean, I grew up in a home where my mom had me at 20 years old, dude. And then my dad commits suicide when I'm seven years old and then she remarries into an abusive relationship. So my poor mom is like, she's fucking in a whirlwind and I'm this kid that's kind of growing up in all this. Well, you were thrust into becoming a parent. Exactly. And that's actually the role that I have with my own mother and father is it's a reverse role. It's really ironic. And I totally am grateful for that because it forced me to mature at a very young age. But I mean, a lot of people don't know how to pull them separate themselves from that and like pay attention to like, hey, my relationship. And I think you guys do a really good job of that. So I really like when you guys share. I know mine pump is so fitness related, but damn, dude, I feel like so many people, and being a kid who grew up in a home like that, it means so much to me to hear guys like you guys share that information with the thousands or fucking millions of people that are listening to the show. It's a whole nother learning process. You know, just going through like the learning curve of being a parent and mistakes that you make. And like you said, it's really just about acknowledging that you don't know everything. And you just have to be real mindful about what you say, what you do, and just kind of observe your child's behavior and see that it's a reflection of yourself. You know, like everything you're doing, like their patterns are just a mirror of what you've established. Yeah, I mean, it's crazy. You know, part of that conversation I had over the weekend with my girlfriend was, you know, she made this interesting point. And she said, if you just, and this doesn't matter if you have kids or not, it's just if you just try to be a little bit better every day. So every day I'm just gonna become a little bit better of a person over time. You become a great, you become a really, really good person. If you treat parenthood like that or every day I'm gonna try and be a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better, you end up becoming a pretty awesome parent. And you know, just to take it back to fitness, I know Adam, you mentioned we're a fitness show and we are, but I'll tell you what, when it comes to all the issues that people have with food and exercise, I think you could bring it and really bring it all the way down to things that may have happened in childhood. Oh, 100% I believe that. 100% I believe that. You know, so, and it's true, we know this as trainers, you know, when you work with clients and people who have issues with food, whether they don't eat enough or they eat too much or they find themselves binging or they have issues with ballooning and weight and then dropping tons of weight or whatever, you can really usually take that back to something that happened, something that is some kind of insecurity or something they developed through childhood. And so that was one of the things for me that was big. Like I thought to myself, and you know what, I gotta be very open to the fact that I may be doing this completely wrong. Well, I think that's what inspired us a lot with this show is that, you know, we all battle our own insecurities. I mean, we're dealing with our own stuff that, you know, we've had since we were kids and fuck, it took 30 years to put it together and realize like, holy shit, like, you know, this is really the driving factor. And I think that you can't avoid that, right? I think it's inevitable that's going to happen to everybody. Everybody's gonna have some sort of a driving insecurity. And I think the trick is to be aware of it and then to know how to use it. Like I feel like there is some strengths behind that. I mean, some of your, some of the greatest athletes and the greatest minds that I've personally have met and sat down with, like some of these guys, like part of why they're so successful in this other areas because they were so driven from an insecurity. So it's not like it's all bad that comes from an insecurity. I think it's just having control of it and being aware of it. I think that's the ultimate goal. Having the attitude where you can grow. Yeah. You know, having that growth mindset. Exactly, grow from it, right? To learn how to harness it, to understand that, hey, this is what's motivated me for most of my life, but it's not my end all be all. And there's more of me from this, you know? So bring on the psychology bird here, please. The child bearing bird. Yeah, right. He's a quass. He's a quass. Climera quass. Today's quass being brought to you by Chimeric Coffee. It's the only coffee that is infused with all natural nutropics for a cleaner, calmer, and more focused buzz without the crash. Click the Chimeric link at mindpumpmedia.com and input the discount code, Mind Pump a Checkout for 10% off. It's the motherfucking quass. The eagle has landed. Quiqua. All right, first up is Carlos Benitez. Why can some people eat like shit and stay lean? Hmm. That's a good question because I hear this from people all the time and I observe this as a kid myself. And when I went through personal training, personal training school or the fitness world, I went into it thinking to myself like, man, you've got some people that can eat whatever they want and they stay skinny and then you've got other people that barely eat and then they get real fat and what the hell, what's going on? Someone has a fast metabolism. Someone has a slow metabolism. That was the language that I understood at that time. And then I went to, you know, get my first certification and they taught us that it was calories in versus calories out and it was all about how many calories you burn, how many calories you eat and that was it. And then I thought to myself, wow, those fat people really lie. You know, they're liars. Like they just eat like a ton of food. It's crazy we all went through that at once. Yeah, and that skinny people, they eat a lot of garbage, but they don't eat a lot of it. Like they eat it when I see them, right? But then they don't eat tons of meals and I would kind of rationalize and is that true for some people? Definitely. Is it true for everybody? No. Then I'd realize and learn later on that there are genetic variances between individuals. There are, and we're identifying now things like the, you know, microbiome that influences this, hormones that influences this. Can you affect your metabolic rate to the point where you can slow it down, cause damage to it through your lifestyle? Yes. Is some of that affected by your genes? Yes. And then I realized that the variances, the differences between individuals can be very dramatic, but you do want to remember that most people are somewhere in the middle. So when we are truly talking about someone that just can eat just a ton of garbage and just stay lean, that is an outlier. That is not the average person. Most people, if they ate a lot of garbage, would gain lots of body fat and just not look, they would look like they ate a lot of garbage. There are outliers though that make up a small percentage of the population of people where they eat, you know, whatever they want and, or that, you know, they eat not well at all and they maintain themselves pretty lean. A lot of us were like that when we were young teenagers. I remember, especially when I was 13, 14, 15 years old, you know, those early teen years where I wanted to, cause remember I had insecurities about being skinny. So I wanted to gain weight. And I know I ate a lot of food. I, you guys know my personality. At that age you are fucking moving like no other man. But see, here's the thing. Like I did a little bit of judo, but I wasn't athletic. Like you guys played a lot of sports. Like I did a lot of reading and watching TV and I do some stuff outside, but I wasn't like outside playing hard all the time. But I ate a lot. Like in the morning I would like, I drink half a gallon of milk and eat massive bowls of cereal and have all these eggs and at lunch I'd have like three sandwiches and then dinner I'd eat everything. And if I ate like I ate when I was 14, if I ate like that now, I would easily be 30, 40 pounds overweight. So I experienced that myself, but no doubt that had to do with the fact that my hormones were, I probably had the perfect like hormone profile to just be lean. Well, I think why we are drawn to the question naturally is we just got off of hanging out with Rob Wolf and talk about a fucking great dude to pick his brain when you get into this type of a topic because, you know, one of the things that he mentions is just, you know, how we don't, we don't take an account when you talk to a nutritionist and dietitian and stuff like that, they don't take account of their ancestry and where they came from in their evolution. Yeah, an evolution like how, how was that not accounted for? And how can you not see how obvious is that, you know, different types of people respond differently to all different types of foods. And so, you know, and like Sal said, there's always going to be an exception to the rule. There's always going to be that guy that can eat whatever he wants, barely touches any weights, muscle builds on his body. Well, that's where we always talk about that. Genetics always play the number one role. Like, you know, what dictates this person to be this way or that way? Like genetics are always going to be a major factor. And then like, you know, movement, activity, things like that, also another major factor. So, but I think for the most part, there is a general rule for all the things that we talk about, but I think you can't focus on those people. I think you can't, you know, I mean, everyone's probably met somebody too that was like, you ever met somebody that was just like fucking brilliant? They were brilliant at it. I mean, just the way they're- Without even trying. Yeah, without even trying. Like he wasn't working any harder or studying any harder than I was, but like things just came together for them. Or you talk about people that can, you know, play like the piano. They just start playing without hardly any practice or playing a sport. I mean, there's definitely these components. And I think a lot of that goes back to, you know, our ancestry and how, you know, we've evolved from our parents or grandparents. There's a complex amount of variables that, you know, will sort of trigger or sort of express these types of genes, right? So depending on what kind of card hand you're dealt and you have this hand that there's a specific formula that will definitely optimize this hand. God, that's such a great point right there which you're saying because this is something that we don't talk a lot about, that people don't realize. This is a, and I remember I saw a great TED talk a couple of years back. This is a major factor of the evolution of what we've seen in sports. Everybody knows, especially if you're a sports watcher, everybody knows if you watch basketball or football right now and you compare it to what it was 30 years ago, holy shit, like the athletes are just freaks. Well then a lot of people like myself used to think like, oh, that's because of steroids and, you know, that type of stuff. No, what we've gotten really good at is learning how to figure out body types that were specific for the sports or like what Justin's talking about. You're picking the best athletes for each sport. Yeah, these people were already genetically ideal for this. Then they put all the time and work and effort and training into it and that's what's made them look almost super human in comparison to the average person. It's like, they were already built to fit in this category and now we've learned to like enhance that. And the sooner that you can figure out this very specific formula, the more, you know, the high performance you're gonna be further on in life. Like I know a lot of the super athletes out there that, you know, I've even been blessed to meet. Like they've figured out when they were really, really little what they were good at and they fine tune and sharpen that very specific way to optimize their movement, to eat all the stuff at a very young age. So. I see two lessons out of this question. Like the first message and lesson from it is, and I hate to say it this way because, you know, it sounds kind of cliche, but don't like, don't worry about other people. That's number one because people are so different that if you worry about other people, you're not going to figure out the best way for yourself. It's just, you just can't do that. And there are, I mean, you know, Adam brought up ancestry and evolution and I'll give you a couple examples of extreme or more extreme versions of that. For example, Native Americans. Native Americans diabetes rate is something like two or three times as high as everybody else. When they eat the same Western American diet, you know, the typical American diet, their diabetes rate is much higher than if you have a Caucasian, you know, from European descent eating that same diet. It's like African American with lactose intolerance. Yeah, extremely high. And there's lots of theories to it. One of them being that they were hunter-gatherers for much longer. And so they were not exposed to high levels of starches and, you know, these types of things and sugars. And then when they eat the typical American diet, their body responds much different. Now, this situation, those people may do better on a higher fat, you know, moderate protein, lower carbohydrate diet. Now on the flip, you can put low carb, higher fat diets on some people and they may have a polymorphism that gives them added control triglycerides and cholesterol. That exists too. So you're really figuring out what works best for you. And I hate saying that because it sounds like such a general question. But it's very, very true. So, you know, someone might eat shitty in it but it might work for them, you know. The other thing too is like, appearances don't tell you everything. There's a lot of people who are underweight. They don't tell you much at all. Yeah, who are underweight or at normal weight who have horrible health markers. There's a, I mean, spontaneous death from heart, you know, where your heart just stops. Like that happens at a higher rate amongst the hardcore athletes than it does amongst the regular population. You know, inflammatory markers were just starting to learn how to read them and what they mean. We're just starting to really break down different, the different particle sizes within cholesterol that tell us what those types of things, you know, could potentially mean. So, there's so many factors. It's almost impossible to answer specifically. Really just focus on yourself and just understand that you're, although there are general truths and they will direct you in particular directions to try things out, you're so different and so individual that the only way to really discover what's gonna work best for you on all levels, everything from a psychological level two and adherence level two, just what feels the best and what gets you the leanest one. It's like asking, why am I not Brad Pitt? You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, I should be Brad Pitt. I think that, you know, part of too, what I get really passionate about is these genetic anomalies that are out there that are spreading information. And, you know, I'll tell you right now that the guys that are sitting in this room, like no one in here is in a genetic somatic. We are pretty close to average as average can get, you know? And then have- So we're squeezing high end average, you know what I mean? Well, and we struggle with all the same things that our listeners- Which average? But I feel like that- Average plus. This was an important piece to putting this trio together also was, you know, I mean, for marketing reasons, it would be awesome to have a genetic anomaly sitting right next to me. You know, some guy that just like eats Taco Bell and looks fucking awesome. You'd be a lot more famous. We would. Or if he was like a super badass hot chick, you know? Like that would just be awesome. I think you just want me to be a hot chick. No, but I mean, that's- We all do. Be careful. I mean, and if you could take anything from answering this question that, you know, caution you on where you guys get your information and, you know, is this guy or girl that's- You know what sucks from this? I'll tell you what sucks. Social media creates this distorted version of vision of just how many of these people exist. Right. If I go on Instagram and I'm looking at fitness people, it gives me this distorted image that this, what makes up normally makes up, you know, 1% of the population is everybody. Like I'm looking through it and I'm like, oh my God, everybody's this genetic freak. Let's look at that. It's probably like 20 men and 20 women that have like over a million followers, right? But that's like who everybody looks at is like, oh, I should look like this. Just look. It would be like me looking at the NBA always and judging my basketball skills based on the NBA, not realizing that I'm looking at such a small sliver of the population of the world. Like look outside, stop looking at social media. Look outside, walk around outside. Odds are if you're working out, you know, a few days a week and you're watching what you're eating- You're sitting in a park at Disneyland. That's what America looks like. Oh my God. People, truth. I just said that. Truth right there. You know, it is that really, and think about like what the fitness celebrities that we follow on social media and ask yourself how many times you've been sitting at Disneyland or Great America or one of these big theme parks like Justin said, and how many times does that body type walk by? Like I can't even think of, I don't, and I'll tell you right now- It doesn't, when it does, I remember it's so rare. Oh my God. Yeah, right. It would stand out like a sore thumb but when you're, we're attached to them. We're attached to them on social media and they're all connected to the same people and they're following all the kind of same pages. It starts to come up in your feet all the time and we get fed this information like this is the norm or this is like, this could be possible for me if I just do some of these things that this guy's doing or this girl's doing and in reality, they're nothing like you. Next up, Girls Gone Wad podcast. Oh, our girls. Something you felt insecure about last week or month and how did you get through it? Wow, you got me, you're gonna go deep here. Yeah, wow. Okay, I'll give you the first one that comes to mind. We're filled with insecurities so it shouldn't be hard for us to figure this out. Neeming infidelity. Hey, Adam, since you have so many, why don't you go, we can totally fuck with each other. This is really open up. Like why don't we name each other's insecurities? How about if we take it to that level? That would be hella fucked. This is a turn into a fight. Come on, man. Yes, no, so I'll tell you the first one that just comes to mind is this last probably three weeks or so. Man, we have had a lineup. We have had a lineup of PhD specialists and authors that are just fucking brilliant. I mean, brilliant, brilliant men and women and that can be intimidating. That can be very intimidating when, especially when I don't know them ahead of time and their first impression is meeting me, you know, the first time they come into the studio. And I, you know, I'm totally somebody who after a scenario or a situation like that happens, I try and reflect like how I handle myself and this and that, I totally evaluate all this, you know, and I still act like a little schoolgirl with some of these guys and girls that come in and we get a chance to meet and it's, it's a. You put on plaid skirts. Yeah, it's a process for me right now, right? Like, and the insecurity part is filling intellectually inferior to these guys and girls that we've because you're, I mean, you're talking about some fucking brilliant minds, man. And, you know, I'm a pretty confident guy, but it can be very intimidating when you're sitting in these interview situations with some of these people. And, you know, the way I handle it is I got to do it, you know, it's part of the job, right? So I'm kind of forced into it. And, you know, what I have, what I don't think I am completely yet is totally myself. I still don't feel like I have 100% been comfortable where I'm all the way me. And I think part of that is the growing process of mind pump growing and us getting bigger and becoming a bigger name in the industry. Like, you know, some of these names now actually know who we are when we reach out to them, which that definitely eases that insecurity feeling. You know, but what I find myself doing, and I think I told this to you guys the other day is, you know, imagine somebody like a Paul check just walks in or like a Tom bill you or someone like that just comes walking in or a Rob Wolf. And I'm sitting down and I feel like I have to sell myself to them in the first 20 minutes. And that's the, and that's my insecurity. That's me feeling like I'm, you know, inferior to this person I'm talking to. And I'm trying to tell you how cool I am. And it's the, it's so obvious to me because it's not normal. I'm not that guy. I'm not somebody who's like that, but I do find myself getting like that. And, you know, it's tough. And I try, I catch myself now. And I just kind of shut up. And then I redirect and probably ask them more questions. But I think that's probably the most glaring one to me right now. I know we're riddled with tons of insecurities, but that's something that's been on my mind in the last couple of weeks, since you asked the last couple of weeks or a month that I've been dealing with. And a part of that is, you know, reassuring the confidence of myself. And one of the things that is, that makes me feel better about it is, it's a really neat thing. And I love noticing or watching this transition is, we'll be interviewing these guys, right? And, you know, some of them may not have a major background in mind. Some of them may have never even listened to our show or maybe just listened to a little bit of it so they don't really know much about us. And it's so cool to sit with these gentlemen in an interview because these people will be going back and forth. And they're all super intellects. And you'll notice they'll go one direction or another direction. And between the three of us, there's always one of us that can really carry that conversation deep with them. And you can always see the transition that they make, right? No matter how much we try and set it up, the tattoos, the six foot, three, 200 pound dudes standing in front of these people, right away we look like meat heads. And you can't help but think that we get judged that way. And part of me feels like I'm trying to sell myself on how we're not. There's more to us, right? But once we get into the interview and they get going, you see, and you can watch this, you can watch them change. You can see their demeanor change. And it takes about 30 to 45 minutes. Isn't that fun though? It is, it's awesome. And I think the mean... I love blowing people's perception. Yes, and I think... We're just blowing them. Part of, whoa, we'll leave that up to you. Part of why... That's Justin's instinct. I'm gonna get an intern for that. Part of me working through this insecurity that I have and what I've noticed is, and this goes across the board with these super intellects, supreme athletes I've been around, billionaires I've been around, it's amazing. When somebody is just so dominant in an area, they tend to be really off somewhere else, either super socially awkward, no self-awareness or emotional intelligence or common sense, but then they're fucking brilliant in this area. And as soon as I noticed that and I recognized that, I realized, oh, fuck, dude, I'm doing all right here. Like, you know what? And I shouldn't feel so insecure just because this guy is so, or this girl is so smart in this area, so... We'll also keep this in mind, like at some point you're gonna meet someone that doesn't have that. Someone who's gonna have everything that shouldn't change how you feel about yourself or your confidence for yourself. And here's something you wanna consider. This is something that I've, insecurities are things that I've been personally focusing on myself for 10 years, I mean, deep and heavy and hard. And one of the things that I more recently learned was the moment you really realize that you're having an insecurity and you're stressing about it, you're actually working on it at that same time. So, you know, Adam, you just shared yours and what's really been your insecurity, but at the same time, you know what you've been doing a lot lately? You've been doing a shit ton of reading. A shit ton of reading. Oh, I didn't share that, yeah, that's, I mean. And so, you're taking something that you've identified as an insecurity and you're turning it into something that's motivating and you're also revisiting the actual insecurity portion of it. Because, yes, it'll motivate you to read, but if you never finally realize that there's no need to be insecure about that, then that's the ultimate goal, but at the same time, you're also working on things. And I think that's where insecurity is probably why they exist in the first place, right? They're kind of motivations, like motivating factors to make you, you know, pursue different things. If you use them correctly, I agree. I think, great point. I mean, fuck, I didn't even touch on that. I literally just, Yeah, because you've been like a reading fanatic lately and you've been listening to books at like two times speed and trying to learn how to speed read and all these different things. You can just get more information. So I think, which I think is excellent, but you know, one thing that we should all realize, everybody should realize, because this is all different. It's different, different areas, right? All of us have, most people have this in some way where you're in front of somebody for whatever reason you feel inferior, right? Or you think you're inferior. And one of the most impressive things anybody will ever notice about anybody is confidence. And confidence can't be faked. And it's funny because literally the second you realize that you're not inferior, and that we're all just men, we're all just people, we're all humans. That's when it comes, it just comes out right away. Where the person meets you and right away, they're like, Oh, yeah, we can all relax here. Yeah, we can all, it's all good. You know, it's all, I did that particular one that you're feeling at them. I had that a while ago because I would train these surgeons and these like scientists. And I had some like a real smart group of clients that I would train and when I'd start training, I was like, Oh, fuck, this is like a surgeon. I need to talk like a particular way and act the particular way. And, you know, then we became friends and everything. And then we would go hang out. And I'm like, they're just regular. I mean, yeah, they're very smart. They work hard, but they're just regular people. And they're weird like I am. And, you know, they're not perfect like I am. And that helped me a lot. For me personally, you know, right now, I've dealt with quite a bit in my life, but right now my biggest insecurity has to do with being a father. And this is because I, you know, a little over a year ago, maybe a year and a half now actually got divorced. And my children are very, very important to me. I love them, you know, more than anything. And going through something like that, one of the first things you think, you know, and one of the reasons why people will stay in marriages for far longer than they should, like I did. And again, I'm not saying anything bad about my ex. It was definitely mutual, but we stayed in it way too long. And it's because of the guilt of what you would do to your kids. And what, you know, you don't want your kids to have to deal with a divorce. And you don't want your kids to have to deal with, you know, dad's not gonna be here and going between two different homes and all that stuff. And, you know, once I got out of that and the divorce, you know, was final and, you know, you still have that like, I need to be the best father I possibly can because I put my kids through this thing, this horrible thing. And I'm slowly realizing like, I'm not gonna be able to protect them from everything. They're gonna have to go through life, right? Life has got some shitty situations. There are also opportunities, opportunities for growth. People tell me I'm a great father. And it's funny because when you have an insecurity about something, nobody could tell you otherwise. No, that's right, it's so true. You know, like if I feel like I'm fat, if I feel like I'm skinny, if I feel like I'm not attractive, or I'm not smart, like everybody around me could tell me, no man, you're not. You look good, you're smart, you know. And if I don't believe it myself, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Everybody in the world could tell me I'm a great dad, but if I feel like I'm not, you know, like if I feel guilty because I divorced, you know, I got divorced with her mom and, you know, and I'm not as organized because I'm trying to organize this whole like, you know, dual custody thing and, you know, their school and I'm trying to do all these different things that I wasn't necessarily involved with, you know, before, like it doesn't matter what everybody says. I have to like understand and learn that about myself that I am doing a good job. And part of the reason why I'm doing a good job is because I care about it. Like that alone will tell me that I'm doing a good job. So that's what I've been dealing with more recently. It's a very difficult one. It's a very, very deep one because it's not dealing with just me. It's dealing with someone who I value more than me, you know, which I don't even know if that's the right thing to say or do, but it's true, like you value my children. So it's so much more difficult than like, if I was dealing with my own insecurity, I think I've gotten pretty good now at like, okay, I see that, let me work on that. But now when someone else is involved, especially my kids, oh boy, that's been a very, very difficult. Is there something that you are doing currently that is helping this or that you find that helps you not feel this way or that you're practicing or? So the time I spend with my kids now is much more quality than it was when I was married to their mother because I took it for granted. I took for granted that I live with them all the time. They're always there. Now I read them, you know, I read stories to them at night. I spend, you know, we have movie night together. We play board games together. I make, you know, I really wanna be, I really wanna connect with them more than just be around them. Whereas before, because I was always around, you know, like I said, you just take it for granted. So objectively, I know I'm doing all these different things, but what makes me feel insecure is the guilt, right? The guilt of not, you know, that we got divorced. The guilt that now my kids have to live in two different homes and I've disrupted their normal routine. That they have to tell their friends, you know, what's going on and that, you know, all these different things that, and like, let me put it this way, like, this is how bad it is. If my kids do anything like at school, like if I get a report card and I see that my kid didn't do three assignments, do you know where my mind immediately goes? Oh, it's because I got divorced. Oh, this is like, they're too stressed out because of the situation. That's gonna be hard to disassociate, you know. It's very difficult to disconnect, to disassociate that because now I feel like that's the cause of anything. Like, oh, she's acting up. I know, maybe it's because, you know, the whole situation's stressing her out or what's going on. Do you find yourself catching that though now? Much more. Like when it comes up and it pops up, you're like, no, no, no, shut up. Much more now. And it's just something I'm working on. But initially, you know, and like this is true of all, I think all insecurities, you're not aware of them. You're not even aware that you have that insecurity. It's good that you're talking about it because now it's like, it's one of those things. Yeah, that's just gonna be a reoccurring thing just because it's so deep and grained and you want to be the best, you know, especially when kids, you know, you reflect on that like you want to be the best you can be around them. But yeah, you can't be so like, that's just one of those things. You can only beat yourself up so much. Well, I feel like too, there's an area here where you can almost argue that there's a lot of positive from it too. Are you kidding me? Of course. I'm telling you right now. Especially being more present. I'm telling you right now, objectively speaking, if I step outside of it, which I've done a lot of meditating on this, a lot of thinking about this, objectively speaking, I am a much better father now than I was before. They have a much better relationship with me now. So you need to tell yourself that. Than before. And I do, and I do, but part of like, I'm in the phase now where I've identified it and now I can work on it. I was in the phase where I didn't even know it existed. Which where most people are. I feel like most people have insecurities and it drives them to act certain ways, which unfortunately are to blame others or to point to, you know what I'm saying? Or to react to things. Versus to objectively pull yourself out. Assess that, hey, it's just like I mean it was, that's exactly how I see my, I pull myself from these situations and I go, okay, well, I feel inferior intellectually. One, remind myself. And then two, do something about that. And that was part of like, you brought up the voracious reading right now. Well, that's... God, I love it when he uses big words. That is too voracious. He like rolls it off his tongue. So those are things that, you know, I think are really good from that insecurity. I mean, it's an insecurity and being aware of it and then reminding yourself that, no, I'm not. But then also, what can I do about it to improve that? And I think that's the same thing that you've done as a father. You just gotta remind yourself that man, I am a fucking good father and I'm continuing to be a better father because this just made me aware of areas that I can continue to improve on. So I think that's the real challenge for people is to, you know, be able to do that. I think so many people are afraid to look in the mirror, man, when it comes to shit like that. What about you, Josh? Yeah, for me, I think for me, the most, the reoccurring theme is that I just don't, I feel really insecure talking about myself in general. Like I... You're insecure about this question. I like, honestly, I don't like... Like I avoid a lot of topics that revolve around myself, even when I'm at family functions, when I'm, you know, amongst the group of friends, like I tend to steer the conversation sort of a way to where I don't have to sit there and explain everything I'm up to, explain who I am and what I'm about and all these types of things. And so, you know, just being on the podcast, obviously it's one of those situations where I'm under the fire and I have to get better at this and I feel like I have definitely grown quite a bit with that as far as expressing myself and that I do have opinions and I do have a way of thinking that is unique and I'm not just absorbing everybody else's ideas. Like I really have a lot of my own ideas and I don't have to back away from them. And I think that that's something I've come to realize that, you know, like everybody has their own voice and it's just a matter of time for me to be able to express it the way that I want to, so. What makes you uncomfortable about talking about yourself? I have no idea. I think, I think it was a lot of the authority growing up that- Do you feel like it's, cause you feel like you're boasting or you're bragging and you don't like to do that? Yeah. Cause you are, you have that personality. You definitely have the like anti-showbo, anti-showoff. You typically hate those guys. Yeah. Yeah. No, I do. That's why I'm so surprised we're friends. You know, you guys, it's really bizarre. But yeah, no, seriously, like I don't like, I've never been that guy that's like, I fucking own you, you know, like unless we're in the middle of a game and you know, I'll say that to your face, but like I don't, I just don't, I don't carry myself that way. I tend to, I tend to want to just hang out and like be the friend that's like there, you know, for people or whatever. Like I, I don't know. I just don't like centering things around myself very often, but I've really been taking steps away from that and trying to pursue like what defines me. And I guess I was just, it just didn't seem appealing to me. Like I didn't, I didn't really feel like like my own unique individual, you know, growing up. I had like a lot of like, what you can't do. You can't do this. Like be humble. Everything like growing up was about being humble and you know, that's the way that I was sort of raised. So getting outside of that is a really, really tough. And it's, there's a lot of friction there for me to understand like how to do that and not be a douchebag. Well, you want it, you don't want it to prevent you from being able to self-examine, you know what I'm saying? That's where the problem like not talking to other people about yourself, that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. But when you have a problem, when you have an issue, when you're troubled, when you're sad, when you're stressed, when you're anxious, when you feel like you just can't. Yeah, I bury that shit. Right. Like you want to be able to talk, especially like your wife, like that's your partner, right? Right. That's a very hard thing for a lot of people to do. I was like that where it's hard for me to tell this person like, I'm weak right now. I can't do this. And when you're not able to do that, it comes out in other ways. And many times it's more destructive. Well, I'll tell you, you know, talking about the wives or the partners and getting the, you know, I always liked, okay, what are some actions or things that people can take away from this? You know, I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast or not, but something that, you know, Katrina and I are both very similar in this area where we're very driven. We're very motivated. We don't want a lot of little bullshit bother us or slow us down, right? But because of that, we also have trained ourselves to suppress things that could be bothering us or suppress things that we do need to talk about or discuss, but because we don't think they're a big deal which is like, oh, we mow through them. But then when it's happening is that starts to build up and then there's this silent animosity for one or the other or something ends of exploding over some bullshit, right? So something that it's been like huge for us in the last two months is, you know, talking about, I've been reading a lot. Well, one of the things I always go, so I'm reading on my own and then I'm also reading with her. So, you know, we, and we've made a goal because we know how crazy we are, we know how crazy we are with our schedule and stuff that we say, okay, the goal is to do this as much as we can, right? I mean, if we can do this every night, that would be awesome, but we're not silly. Like we know that life is gonna happen. We have a lot going on. I know with you guys with kids and shit going on, it's tough to commit to that. But what we agreed upon was, hey, listen, we'll never let a whole week go by that we don't spend this time learning together. And what happens when we do that, it's amazing the conversation that gets promoted from that. Totally, totally nothing to do with maybe the book that we're reading, but because we're, we're, we're being so mindful and present. And we're in that space. Yeah, exactly. We're in that space together, right? We're getting those that like followed Steven Kotler and stuff like that. You know, the first book we read together was Rise of Superman and getting into flow state. I truly can feel that. And it's an amazing, powerful tool that we have created for ourselves by just putting that discipline of, hey, you know, hey, it's been almost a full week and we have not done this together. We're making time. We're gonna make time. Now I'd like to make more time, but at the bare minimum, we're sitting down for a minimum of an hour, two hours every single week where we're going through this. And it's amazing the conversation that gets stimulated from that. So if I can give that to those that are in relationships and couples is, man, you know, make time for each other to be mindful and present and easiest ways to go through like a book for me. Here's a tool that I've been using more recently that has been so effective because we said this about, you know, identifying your insecurity or an issue. This first step is becoming aware of it. Sounds easy, right? It's very difficult cause you're in it. You're in it, you don't see it. It's just, you're living it. So it's very difficult to go from not aware to aware. Once you're aware, then you can make the changes and then you can see it. But before you become aware of it, it's very, very difficult and it feels impossible. And one thing that I've been doing rather, more recently is there's certain people around me that I trust fully, like, and that I respect. Like you guys, like, I trust and respect you guys fully to the point where if you guys were to give me an opinion on something, I would definitely give it weight. I would definitely say, well, you know, that's Justin said that or Adam said that or Doug said like, I'm gonna give weight to that cause these are men that I trust with my life. These are men that are intelligent and who, you know, probably have a really good opinion. And there's other people around me as well that are like that. And so what I've done to kind of hijack the whole becoming aware thing is I am starting to learn to just trust people. And what I mean by that is if one of you guys comes to me and says, you know, Sal, last week you were, I don't know, you're acting like an asshole because you're blah, blah, blah, blah. Now my immediate thing is to be like, no, I'm not. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? You're being an asshole, like, because you're not in, you're in it, right? So you don't even know that you're being an asshole. You're in it and you want to be defensive cause you're being told that you're doing something that may not be good or accurate or whatever. But to kind of hijack that and initially you'll have that response. But what I've done now is I'll have that response. Then I'll wait for myself to have that response. Then I'll go back and be like, okay, I trust this person. I'm gonna take what they're saying seriously and look into it. And many times I'm like, holy fuck, they were right. Like that person was totally right. I am doing this particular thing or I am motivated by this particular insecurity and boom, awareness right away. So I think that's what's important about having like a really close partner and friends and people around you is sometimes you just gotta trust them. You know, if you have issues with food or body image issues, for example, and the people around you are saying, listen, man, you look really good and you know- Be open to ask those questions. Yeah. Around your significant- But just believe them. Those are people that, yeah, you trust. Like I think from my perspective, that's a big step from being able to come to you guys and be like, hey, how do you guys feel about the way I interacted with this person? Or like having that conversation start so that way that sort of assessment process can start. Excellent. Hey, before we get into the next question, Doug, I wanna remind everybody that we're having the Barefoot Specialist certification here this coming weekend, Saturday and Sunday. This is training on imbalances and strength and connectivity of the feet and the ankles. And let me tell you, this is huge, especially coming from someone who's been in training as long as I have. You don't learn this in your normal certifications. I don't learn anything above or, you know, I barely learned a little bit about the ankle. I know a lot about the knees, the hips, the shoulders, the back and nothing on the feet. And let me tell you something, makes a huge, huge difference. Oh, not to mention too that you get all the same CEUs that for your NASM, your AFA, NCS, yeah, ACE, all the big ones, so those that are trainers that are listening. So even if you're not a trainer, I think this is a phenomenal certification to go through. CEUs, yeah. So it's happening that this weekend is what is it, 25th and 26th here at Mind Pump Media. You can sign up at mindpumpmedia.com under the events calendar. That's correct. Excellent. All right, our final question is from young crazy fool. How do you progress someone into a deep squat? What are the steps to getting there? Okay, there's a few things. I think we need a, I think first. You force them. Yeah. Well, actually, you know what? You sit on them. This is a really good question because I think, you know, we've talked a lot, especially in the last year or so. I put a lot of emphasis on watching me, you know, go from, you know, squatting at 90 degrees with my belt and shoes to, you know, to go barefoot, sitting all the way down. And, you know, you just can't go from... There's steps. Yes, there's a lot of steps and a lot of time to do that. Now, you could do it, but a lot of people will have all kinds of stuff going on and you're at risk of injury if you try and progress yourself too fast. And, you know, so I typically pick an area and it's normally, you know, foot ankle or hip that I'm really gonna address first and see how much more that this, how much more travel, you know, with good form does this allow me? So in other words... Where does it break down? Yeah. So, and those are the areas that are common, right? The hips, ankle, foot, that's where when you're talking about a deep squat that the limiting factors are typically somebody has poor hip mobility, poor ankle mobility or poor foot connection. So in my opinion, those three areas are the main areas that I'm looking at. Now, you can technically address all three at the same time, that's totally fine. Like that's how Prime was designed. Prime is designed to help people look, assess their squat and then address all those collectively. For me, it worked really well by taking an area and really getting good. Like, you know, I took my hips first and it was a lot of 90-90 work, a lot of the work that we put up on the YouTube channel. So if you're not subscribed to that, subscribe to that, this is the type of stuff that we drop on there. Well, let's not go too far from Prime because this is the sole reason why we've created Prime or even highlighted the fact that people need to reassess their movement in general. And like going through that process and going through the checkpoints, it's very important to get back in tune with your body and the processes that get you into certain positions. So you have to really slow down. You got to slow down and this may be something that you want to progress, you always want to progress, but you might even need to regress even further and address very like small, you know, patterns that are hardwired in you that you need to break. And so this is something like Adam's mentioned, ankles or hips or, you know, wherever the breaking point is or the main source of the dysfunction, we got to get to the root of that. One of the, I mean, just to give you some, I guess some like bullet points, because how do you get someone to progress into a deep squat is very individual, obviously, but there's kind of this general answer and it's really break the movement down into smaller movements or smaller ranges of motion and practice the squat. So what do I mean by that? Well, let's say I get somebody who goes into a half squat, anything past a half squat and shit breaks down. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to get them to master and perfect that half squat plus an inch. Like I might make them go just a tiny bit lower, master that, master that, practice that. Once they've got that under control, now we go another inch and we practice that. So this is where props, you know, tend to come in handy, right? So if you have like a TRX, you're holding on to or you have a box underneath your butt that you're trying to achieve, like as far as the height is concerned. So basically put goals out in front of this process and really like master that skill of getting down into depth and then control and adding muscle tension and support. So you got to learn all these things. You got to teach your body that you're supported. And you want to identify like, is it a strength issue? If it's a strength issue, they just practice with good control and tension and shorter ranges of motion. That become longer and longer over time. If it's tightness, you know, let's say the person gets down and they can't go any lower because their hips are tight or their calves are tight or they don't have good mobility in particular joints. Then the rule of thumb is first, gain passive range of motion. So this is where static stretching is really effective when it comes to correctional type stuff. So if I take someone whose hips are just, they're just too tight period. They can't get into a deep squat because hips are too tight. The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna try and passively get better range of motion in their hips. So this is where I'll get them in a stretch with their hips and I'll hold it for them and get that range of motion. Once I've established range of motion through me doing it for them, then I try and connect it to where they do it. Then I try and connect it with strength. So this is like this progress of this process, excuse me, of progression where I'm going range of motion passively, range of motion actively, control within range of motion with tension and then movement within that new range of motion and you follow that over and over and over again and regress every time you notice something breaks down. Like, okay, wow, we've got down to a full squat. Now I'm gonna put a little bit of weight on you. Oh, looks like it broke down again at the bottom. Take the weight off and go and, or keep the weight on and go up a little higher and progress you down. You know, the different ways you can regress but it's breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces. This is, it is hard to like really get into this because there is so, and I totally left out like thoracic mobility. I don't know why I did that because that was another limiting factor of mine, right? So I started in the order that Sal was saying exactly what happened to me was like, okay, the first thing that was the major limiting factor which I think is gonna be very common with a majority of people that 90 degree squat or less. So the hip, just the hip mobility and the ability to get in there, right? So the stretching, the 1990s, things like that, mobilizing the hips, starting to do mobility work so you can strengthen in those areas without any weight, nothing like that at all. And then once I got like, okay, now I've got the hip mobility, then I started to notice that my ankles were a limiting factor and my thoracic mobility was, because as you get down deeper into the squat, you'll see people tend to round forward even more. And so just because you're down in a deep squat because you opened your hips up doesn't necessarily mean it's safe for you to start loading the back yet because now you get deeper than 90 then now you see because of the limiting, the limiting thoracic mobility, you round forward and now you get this rounded lower back because of how tight you are and the limiting factor up there. And or you start to notice you go deeper and you rock forward onto the front of your feet and your heels start to come off the ground which is why you see people want to use squat shoes to kind of cheat that so they can get deeper into their squat. So addressing ankle mobility. So there is a lot of individuality in this but there are some major areas I think that are super common which is the hips, the ankles of feet and then I left out the thoracic mobility that you should be looking at which is all stuff just so you know. I mean, this was a lot of what motivated us one with prime. So even if I'm not trying to sell you on my prime if you don't wanna buy prime then go to the YouTube channel and subscribe to that and we've created playlists that like and you'll see like anything that's probably in the white or the yellow is gonna be stuff that you're gonna be really wanting to focus on. So we did a lot of stuff in maps white and maps yellow which is maps prime that really addresses these areas that we're talking about and start looking at these mobility drills and exercises or tension movements that we just did a tension series. Like all these things are going to improve the depth in your squat if you start incorporating. Yeah, one of the things that I worked with a lot of like special populations like older people over the age of 65 and 70 and my goal was always to be able to get them to do a squat. One of the things that I would do is either I would start them depending on how out of shape they were, how deconditioned they were. I'd have them practice just sitting down in a chair with good form like they're gonna get into a squat but not actually doing the squat part. So I actually have them slow down, try and control so they don't like just fall in the chair. So that was one regression I would do and one a couple steps later would be I would get them to master a lunge a stationary lunge while holding something for balance because I knew that that front leg was essentially doing the squat motion. Once I could get them to master the lunge then I moved them to squatting with a broomstick across the front of their shoulders because it's easier to master the front squat than it is to master the back squat because you don't need as much of the mobility and whatever and I'm not using resistance it's just something real light. I even had these padded like five pound bars I put across the shoulders. Getting up and get them to practice that and then some of them we never got to the squat. We never got to the back squat. It's just I just continue to slowly progress them but we just never got to that point. Well, when you talk about somebody who's that old for so many years of their life they have created imbalances. It's very, very tough to get someone to back squat because back squat requires shoulder mobility, spine mobility, I mean so many different things. Yeah, arguably I mean that's why it's the best, right? And that's why too I think we used to say this a lot on our show early on and we haven't really addressed this so it's a good time to say this that if you have problems squatting do not just especially if you're fucking young and by young I mean less than 50, 60 years old like your goal should be to get to the point where you can do a deep squat even it's with no weight on your back like the idea that this is a very normal functional movement we should all be able to do. I can't even stress that enough like the amount that that will contribute to your ability to move, the amount of muscle you can put on your lower body, how tight and conditioned your upper body is, your overall functionality, like the amount that just being able to get into a squat without weight with good control, the amount that that will contribute positively to all those things is tremendous. We're not even talking about going to the gym and doing hardcore heavy back squats so if you can't get into a squat with no weight just sit into a squat, feet flat, good connectivity through the feet all the way up to the back then that should be your goal and I promise you the process of getting there will make you better at everything. At everything. 100% It makes you better at everything. 100%. So check this out. We put up a brand new video on YouTube every single day so get on the subscribe, you will learn a ton and here's another good thing that we do. 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All you do is you go to mindpumpmedia.com and opt in, sign yourself up. And lastly, check us out on Instagram at Mind Pump Radio. That's where you can ask these questions that we answer on these Q&A episodes. You can also find my personal page at Mind Pump Sal. Adam's personal page is at Mind Pump Adam and Justin is at Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes MAPS Anabolic, MAPS Performance and MAPS Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal, Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers but at a fraction of the price. 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